


Once Upon a December

by ariannenymerosmartell (somethingmoo)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, canon AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-27 19:56:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2704634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingmoo/pseuds/ariannenymerosmartell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Drabble every day for the month of December. Tags, warnings, and pairings to be updated as this goes on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 12/1. Arya Stark x Jaqen H'ghar-- "All at Once."
> 
> Written for: [aryaxjaqenweek](http://tmblr.co/mJFrO_BOhXnZcZtlKGz5apg) on tumblr.

As a child, he’d been her guide. She’d trusted him, put her faith in him. She hadn’t loved him—she hadn’t _remembered_ how to love then. When she’d looked at him then, she felt safe. He was a _friend_.

He was dangerous, she knew, she wasn’t stupid. A blind man could sense that he was dangerous, could hear it in every syllable, the timbres of his voice like silk edged with a blade. He was dangerous, but she hadn’t been scared when he’d look at her, even though she was a little girl. She hadn’t been scared, and she’d look right back, and he would nod, and call her _lovely_. He was a _friend._

Even when she’d forgotten what that word meant, when she forgot the feeling of friendship, when she had nothing left, when she’d been abandoned, and left, when her pack was killed, he’d been a friend. And when she’d forgotten what it was like to be lovely, or perhaps she’d never known, he called her _lovely_ , still.

He’d look at her and she wouldn’t be afraid.

When he looks at her now, shivers run up her spine.

Something has changed, something has darkened, something has happened. When he looks at her now, she feels the chills wash over her body like the morning mists. He’s still dangerous, but now so is she, and that makes her more acutely aware of how dangerous he is.

She can tell where every blade is concealed on his person: tucked inside his sleeve, one in his boot, one flat against his back, still another flat against his stomach. When he sits, that one grazes his skin, barely grazes it, and there will be a long, thin, pale pink line that travels down his stomach to the place where his breeches are fastened.

There is a poison kept in the band of his ring, and one of the coins he carries is dipped in a poison as well, a dark one, one that causes a man to suffer. One of his blades has a poisoned tip, but she doesn’t know which. The one in his sleeve most like, but he could draw any of them quickly.

He could cut her throat and be gone, be far away, be someone else before she could utter a word.

He looks at her and she shivers, because he sees _her_ , not the person she is pretending to be, not the person she is trying to be, but _her._ He sees her, and he knows her, and his eyes drink her in cataloging her every movement, her every thought.

He sees her and he _knows_ her.

She should move, she should flee, she should disappear, meld into the shadows like she’s learned to. She should show him that she’s dangerous too.

But he _knows_. He knows that, can see it and sense it, and she’s always had more courage than sense.

She stays and he comes closer, and he whispers _lovely_ , and then he is gone again, no one and everyone all at once.


	2. Fire Through Wine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12/2. Jon Connington x Jon Snow-- "Fire Through Wine."
> 
> This is set in the same universe as the rest of [The Connington Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/170249) so you might as well read those first, otherwise this won’t make a lick of sense…. Not that those make much sense either.

“Will you not take a cup of wine?” Jon asks the Lord Commander. Aegon is already out there drinking with the men, celebrating another victory over the wights. The men say that every small victory is something to be cheered, and Aegon is more than happy to encourage him.

But this boy, this serious one, this one the calls Aemon, privately, and Lord Snow every other time, shakes his head, but grants him a small smile. His heart constricts.

“I would prefer to think on my foe with a clear head,” he says, but leaves the door to his chamber open, an invitation for Jon to enter. He takes it, and takes a seat across from the boy commander who looks weary beyond his years.

He is not such a boy any longer, Jon thinks sadly, because no one should have this many burdens on their shoulders. But the boy shoulders it well, never wavering, at least not in public, where every eye is trained on him.

“Any victory is worth celebrating,” Jon says, but the words sound lame in his ears, and he regrets having said them.

“And that is why I let the men celebrate,” Jon Snow says, “but I won’t celebrate until the threat is over. I have seen first hand what comes of thinking you are safe.”

The boy leans back into his seat and winces, gripping at his side.

“Were you injured?” Jon asks, alarmed. I cannot let Rhaegar’s son die, he thinks, and almost rises to call Haldon in to look at him, but the boy, Aemon, is waving his hand dismissively.

“It is an old injury,” the boy says, a little sheepishly. “It pains me from time to time.”

“From a battle with the Others?” Jon asks, curious. He has seen Jon Snow fight. The boy is a formidable source with his sword, the bastard Valyrian steel. He cannot imagine anyone, save an Other, getting the best of him.

Lord Snow’s face hardens at that, and once again, he looks like a man of many years, rather than a boy of six-and-ten.

“With my brothers,” Lord Snow says bitterly, and Jon’s eyes widen in surprise.

This time, the boy doesn’t wait for Jon to ask another question, he continues speaking, telling Jon the story. Confiding in him. It fills him with joy.

“They thought… they did not agree with what I meant to do,” Lord Snow says mildly, after a fashion. “They sought to stop me.”

“What did you seek to do?” Jon asks. He does not know much about the Night’s Watch, just that they serve for life, but he imagines that even if the boy—Aemon—were to break his vows, they would simply behead him, not stab him.

“The Night’s Watch takes no part,” Lord Snow says, and suddenly, though he is looking at Jon, his mind is far away, and his eyes are hazy. Jon feels a sharp pang in his chest. How many times had he seen that same expression on Rhaegar’s face? How many times had he seen Rhaegar’s mind wander, thinking about his children, his future, the prophecy, mayhaps?

The men say that Jon Snow is all Stark, but so much of him is Rhaegar, it makes Jon’s heart race to see it.

“The Night’s Watch takes no part,” Lord Snow repeats, “but I thought that Ramsay Snow had my sister, and I would have forsaken every vow I made to save her.”

Rhaegar foreswore vows for a Stark girl too, Jon muses, thinking of Elia and Lyanna, and all the things that led to Rhaegar’s death. Had his son nearly met a similar fate?

“And you stopped them?” Jon asks, wanting Lord Snow to continue, wanting to hear his voice, wanting to know the man who was so like Rhaegar, though he did not know it.

“No,” Lord Snow says, and he laughs a little, a mix of bitterness and wonder. “They stabbed me. I felt the knives go in, I felt the pain, I saw the blood. I fell to the snow, and I felt the cold wash over me.”

Jon’s brow furrows in confusion.

“How were you saved?” He asks, staring at the boy, surprised that he had not noticed any injuries before. He’d watched the boy train, with sword and dragonglass, and not once had he seen him wince in pain.

“What does fire taste like?” Lord Snow asks abruptly, startling Jon out of his reverie.

“Burning, I imagine,” Jon says with a weak chuckle, unsure of what the boy is asking. Lord Snow eyes lighten at that, and he smiles, though faintly.

“When I awoke again, I tasted ashes in my mouth, and my body burned. My skin felt like fire, but my insides… I felt the burn of ice.”

Ice and fire, Jon thinks, and oh for Rhaegar to be here, to hear this, because he is sure Rhaegar would know what to do.

“How?” Jon asks, and feels a fool for it, as though he is missing something vital, some important part that he should understand without the boy having to tell him.

“A kiss,” Lord Snow says simply, and the sadness in his face and far away look in his eyes twist Jon’s stomach in knots. “I was lucky.”

They sit in silence for a moment, and then the boy chuckles. It is a small sound, as though he has just discovered something that amazed him.

“The free folk say that people with red hair are kissed by fire,” the boy says, breaking the silence and nodding towards Jon’s own hair. “It means you are lucky.”

Jon touches his hair in confusion, the fiery strands cold, even with his gloves, and the boy laughs again.

“We always need more luck at the wall,” Lord Snow says, and this time Jon joins him in his laughter.

“Mayhaps I will drink to that after all.”

Jon pours him the cup of wine gladly, a surge of pride racing through him, when Jon smiles at him and says thank you, my lord, just as Rhaegar always had.


	3. Reminders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12/3. Elia Martell x Lyanna Stark-- "Reminders."

People often forget that Elia Targaryen is first and _foremost_ Elia Martell. People often forget that she is Dornish.

She never knows _how_.

She has the characteristic silken black hair of the Martells, that falls like a wild and turbulent river down nearly to her waist. Her eyes are large, and dark, and shaped just like Doran’s. No one ever forgets that _he’s_ a Martell, though, she supposes, they do sometimes question his Dornish blood. _Not fiery enough _. But she has Oberyn’s smile, and _no one_ ever forgets that Oberyn is Dornish and a Martell. It seems unfair that they forget about her.__

__It’s because of her illness, Addison’s disease, that leaves her weak and shaky. _Not fiery enough_. And then she’d gone and married a Targaryen, who were supposedly fire made flesh and everyone thought she’d been consumed by him. Eclipsed by him. Everyone thought of her as nothing more than Rhaegar Targaryen’s weak, sickly, meek little shadow._ _

___How_ did they forget that she was the sun?_ _

__It makes no matter now._ _

__Not when Elia leaves Rhaegar. Not when she hires his mistress, Lyanna, as a nanny for the children. Not when she leaves the blinds open, lets the paparazzi take as many photos as they want of her pushing Lyanna down on the dining room table and licking at her until she comes with a scream._ _

__They won’t forget she’s Dornish _now_._ _


	4. Wet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12/3. Arya Stark x Jaqen H'Ghar-- "Wet."

She is wet.

So achingly, painfully, distressingly wet.

She is so wet she can hear it every time his fingers or his tongue push into her, she can hear the sound of her wetness, squelching, dripping, on his fingers, on his tongue.

He refuses to let her come, keeps driving her to the the brink every time, and then stopping abruptly, pulling his fingers out, stopping his tongue just short of her clit.

He drives three fingers in, and she can hear her wetness around them, can feel when he slips in a fourth finger without the least bit of resistance because she is dripping so much she can feel her own juices slipping down her rear. She's dripping so much she can feel the wet spot beneath her growing wider and wider by the minute, the parts closest to her cunt achingly warm, the outer parts--spread now to her thighs-- blissfully cold.

He refuses to let her come and he calls it a lesson, and a voice from long ago whispers that _every hurt is a lesson, and every lesson makes you better_ , but she can't imagine anything better than this.

She can't imagine anything better than his red and white head trapped between her legs, licking at her clit until she comes with a scream.


	5. Come Spring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12/4. Jon Snow x Arya Stark-- "Come Spring."

He knows it's her before Rhaegal lands.

He'd know that sword anywhere. He and Mikken had designed it together. How many hours had he spent in that forge, in secret, getting the size and the shape just right?

How long had he spent imagining her face when he gave her the sword? How long had he recalled her bright, brilliant smile on those cold nights on the wall?

How often had he recalled that smile to convince himself that he did the right thing?

He knows it is her before the great green dragon lands, because hadn't he told her? _He'd told her_.

He'd told her, and now he wants to sob, because it feels like it's his fault. He should have been a better brother, should have been a better man, because hadn't he _told_ her? _He told her._

They'd find her body thawed in the spring, with a needle still clutched in her hand.


	6. Falling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12/6. Rhaenys Targaryen-- "Falling."

One moment she is flying and the next, she is falling.

The bolt goes through Meraxes's eye, and it feels as though a spear has pierced her heart. Her entire body hurts, and it feels as though she is on fire. Her skin is too hot, her lips are dry and cracked, her insides boiling.

The great dragon is screaming, screaming, and thrashing, and every moment of it eats through her, the beast's screams echoing in her head as she falls, falls, falls, and hits the sand at the same time as her dragon does. 

Meraxes's tail is thrashing, crumbling buildings, felling towers, and she says a silent prayer that the beast's tail might fall on her too.

_End me_ , she thinks _, let us go together._

But the great dragon stills, and she is still alive, and everything hurts so badly that she can't even cry. 

And then she hears a voice tinged with amusement. A voice that is unmistakeably _Dornish_.

"Your Grace," the voice says, and whomever it is can barely contain their glee. "Welcome to Hellholt."


End file.
